Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun #5 – Nene and Aoi discuss recent events in detail, and conclude that when a boy kisses a girl, it definitely, probably, almost certainly indicates that he may have taken some sort of interest in her. It comes as a great shock, then, when it turns out that Hanako has asked her to come to the scene of the latest peculiar haunting simply because of the haunting.
I guess sometimes a charm to ward a girl from evil spirits is just a charm to ward a girl from evil spirits. On the other hand, this is where Hanako finally has to admit that he feels guilt and sometimes he really does just do things out of the goodness of his heart. And now, having shown that he has goodness in his heart, it seems it’s time for Nene to meet Hanako’s evil twin.
By the way, when Nene starts to think Hanako looks like a normal boy for a minute, that’s not just her learning to see past the creepy ghost facade. The gakuran, the standard boys’ uniform at many schools in Japan, has hardly changed in decades, except for the cap that Hanako wears slowly going out of style. It make it hard to say what era Hanako comes from, just that he’s probably been dead longer than Nene has been alive.
(Funimation — AnimeLab — Wakanim — Animax Asia — bilibili)
ID: Invaded #7 – Hondōmachi’s first visit to a well involves none other than Narihisago’s from back when he made his first kill. And just when things are getting very, very interesting, in barge some other cops with some convenient evidence to arrest Momoki on suspicion of being John Walker.
Let’s ignore the business with Momoki for now, because it’s obviously a setup, and what’s happening in the well is far more important right now. And it’s really past time to take a look at the wordplay going on here.
The word id, thanks to the limitations of the Japanese syllabary, has to be written in it as ido. Ido is also the term for a well. (The id wells are just ido in the Japanese soundtrack too.) And of course it also shows up in the family names of the master detectives: Sakaido, Anaido, and now Hirjiido Miyo.
The first character in Sakaido’s name is the one for sake or alcohol in general. I’m not sure what the deeper meaning is there, but maybe we’ll learn at some point that he had an alcohol problem. For Anaido, ana is a hole or burrow, which has a clear enough connection to Fukuda. Hijiri is an especially virtuous monk, an ascetic, or a saint. Miyo means an imperial reign. So Hondōmachi’s cause is pure (maybe a reference to how she qualified by self-sacrifice), and she might be in charge in some way?
Recall that the whole reason Hondōmachi was pulled in was that one can’t enter one’s own id well. Not because it’s impossible, but the person would be trapped there forever, even in death. Of course, saying that something shouldn’t be done just about guarantees, in this kind of story, that it absolutely will be. We also have to take into account that perhaps it has already happened. The show itself has now raised the possibility by demonstrating that the cockpit can be manifested inside the well.
So how many layers deep are we really, and whose head is everyone rattling around in? It has to be either Narihisago’s or Hondōmachi’s. I’d guess that it’s Narihisago’s, but that Hondōmachi has some as yet unrevealed connection to the Mizuhanome. (Which is, incidentally, the name of a goddess of wells.)
(Funimation — AnimeLab — Wakanim — bilibili)
Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun #19 – Between Iruma and Sullivan, the fireworks are safely disposed of, the barriers are broken, Kirio has to content himself with his own disappointment, and everybody can get back to the business of being embarassed by their weird families.
We’ve been hearing about how Sullivan is one of the most powerful demons in existence, but now we can really appreciate the fact. I don’t mean the stopping time so much as the way he casually strolls out of custody, as if he has simply been humoring the entire apparatus of demon border control because he had nothing better to do until now.
And this is what happens when kindly old grandpa is merely, by the looks of it, a bit peeved. If he ever gets seriously angry, I don’t think anyone will be left to tell the tale.
The return to comedy is welcome, especially because nothing which gets us more time with Clara’s family can be a bad thing. It’s interesting that they deliberately point out that Clara’s father hasn’t been shown with them yet. I wonder if he’s someone we already know?
(Crunchyroll — Animate Gamer — Muse Asia — bilibili)
In/Spectre #5 – Kurō vs. the Steel Lady ends in a draw, and everyone troops back to Saki’s place to consider what they’re dealing with. Kotoko has explained Kurō’s backstory and now has a theory about the mysterious manifestation.
So Kurō is the result of generations of experimentation to produce someone who can predict the future and not die of it. Kotoko says that the end result wasn’t quite what his family was trying for, and then falls silent about it. But earlier, she made a comment about Kurō being able to make something happen easily if it was already highly probable— so is the power that he’s actually able to manipulate events to some degree?
Meanwhile, Kotoko suspects that the Steel Lady is a manifestation of popular belief and the real perpetrator is whoever set up that wiki. In other words, this is turning into almost the same show as Hanako-kun, only with adults.
(Crunchyroll — bilibili)
Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story #6 – Iroha decides to go see the sights, but winds up entangled in another not-Witch phenomenon and somehow hiring herself a mercenary. Meanwhile, ever more magical girls are streaming into Kamihama.
If you aren’t familiar with the original series then you probably have no inkling that we’ve now seen two characters from it pop up in Kamihama, since they haven’t arrived with too much fanfare. One is Tomoe Mami, the girl with the rifles who almost killed Iroha last week. The other is the magenta-haired girl on the roof this week, Sakura Kyōko. They might just have been brought in for a little prod of nostalgia, but it seems like Kyōko at least has some further part to play in this story.
The new term everyone is suddenly using for the witch-like phenomena is Uwasa, which means “rumor”. Which means that this is maybe a third show heading for a theory of magical beings evolving in response to popular opinion.
(Funimation — AnimeLab — Wakanim — Aniplus Asia — Animate Gamer — bilibili — Crunchyroll — HIDIVE)
